Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage (Sather Classical Lectures)

Sather Classical Lectures

by Helene P. Foley

This book explores the emergence of Greek tragedy on the American stage from the nineteenth century to the present. Despite the gap separating the world of classical Greece from our own, Greek tragedy has provided a fertile source for some of the most innovative American theater. Helene P. Foley shows how plays like Oedipus Rex and Medea have resonated deeply with contemporary concerns and controversies―over war, slavery, race, the status of women, religion, identity, and immigration. Although Greek tragedy was often initially embraced for its melodramatic possibilities, by the twentieth century it became a vehicle not only for major developments in the history of American theater and dance, but also for exploring critical tensions in American cultural and political life. Drawing on a wide range of sources―archival, video, interviews, and reviews― Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage provides the most comprehensive treatment of the subject available.

396 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, this book is really good at what it sets out to do, which is to explore and more or less catalog trends in US performances and adaptations of Greek tragedy. However, what I found limited about the book was the relatively low engagement with theories about adaptation and performance as such. The book reads much like a catalog of different performances, with an explanation of the vicissitudes of those individual plays/performances and some description of how the adapted performances differ from the Greek originals. But there was minimal engagement with questions like: why adaptation? what does it mean to adapt? to adapt from Greek drama? how does adaptation position itself vis-a-vis cultural capital? These were really the kinds of questions I was looking for answers to (particularly since my diss is about British and non-US Anglophone adaptations, so little of the specific US reception info was helpful for me).